Signals: Obesity and the Knowledge Worker ... We Are One ... and more

Vol. 2, No. 1 | November 3, 2015 | AAI Foresight

Inside Foresight Signals

> Obesity and the Knowledge Worker

> Combining 3D Printing and Clean Energy

> Hot Topic: Travel, Tourism, and Technology

> News from AAI Foresight: New Website ... We Are One!

> Mack Report: Coal’s Future Impacts

Obesity and the Knowledge Worker

You’re a highly skilled knowledge worker of the Information Age, with decision-making authority over your equally skilled employees. Feeling good about yourself? Hang on.

Research has shown that having a high level of control over your job can mitigate the stresses involved that contribute to obesity. But a team of Australian researchers now observes that different types of job control—skill discretion and decision authority—have different effects: Skilled workers with freedom to use those skills had lower body mass index and smaller waist size, while workers required to make a lot of decisions had bigger waist size.

With a global population of overweight people approaching 2 billion, researchers are pursuing a wide range of factors behind the growing epidemic. “When looking at the wide system of factors that cause and maintain obesity, work stress is just a small part of a very large and tangled network of interactive factors,” said lead author Christopher Bean, a health psychology PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide, in a press statement.

Reference: Christopher G. Bean, Helen R. Winefield, Charli Sargent, and Amanda D. Hutchinson, “Differential associations of job control components with both waist circumference and body mass index,” Social Science & Medicine, Volume 143 (October 2015), published by Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.034.

Signals: health, information age, knowledge workers, obesity, stress, work

Combining 3D Printing and Clean Energy

Additive manufacturing processes (aka 3D printing) have come a long way from rapid prototyping. A project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory merges building and vehicle construction with clean energy systems to create a possible solution to the challenges of the modern electric grid, such as intermittent outages and the impacts of extreme weather.

For its Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy (AMIE) demonstration, ORNL and partners printed both a natural-gas-powered hybrid electric vehicle and a solar-powered building, connecting them to create an integrated energy system. The intermittent power from the building’s 3.2-kilowatt solar array is balanced with supplemental power from the vehicle via the system’s central control.

“Working together, we designed a building that innovates construction and building practices and a vehicle with a long enough range to serve as a primary power source,” said ORNL’s Roderick Jackson, who led the AMIE demonstration project. “Our integrated system allows you to get multiple uses out of your vehicle.”

Details: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Image: Carlos Jones, courtesy of ORNL.

Signals: construction, energy, 3D printing

Hot Topic: Travel, Tourism, Traffic, and Technology

Advances in transportation technology over the past 50 years have enabled people to travel farther than ever, and to spend less time doing so. While investment in transportation has expanded employment and leisure opportunities, the total number of trips that people take has remained stable since 1965, according to Britain's latest National Transportation Survey, reported in the journal Significance.

Many current advances in transportation technologies go largely unseen, as in Fraunhofer IAO’s UR:BAN research initiative to create safer and more efficient streets in tomorrow’s cities. The project combines cognitive assistance technologies, networked traffic systems, and human factors research that will help predict what drivers, pedestrians, and others will do, preventing accidents and optimizing travel.

Other technologies affecting travel trends include smartphones, wearable devices, and social networking that have converged to create the booming sharing economy as exemplified by Airbnb, Couchsurfing, Nightswapping, and others, writes Singapore futurist Harish Shah.

“As these Sharing Economy models gradually converge with other developments also driven by technological evolution, they will very much impact the way the conventional hospitality industry players will have to do business,” Shah writes. Up next: telepresence robotics and 4D virtual reality that eliminate the need to travel altogether.

But technology is not the only force driving change in travel trends. As TechCast Global observes in its case study of Las Vegas, stresses in both the climate and the economy could lead desert-bound cities in the dust.

“Ten years from now, [Las Vegas] may have been evacuated and overrun by desert,” TechCast reports. “This gaudy entertainment capital faces serious challenges in the coming decades. They could be even worse in the years beyond 2035.”

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News from AAI Foresight: New Website … We Are One!

This fall, AAI Foresight introduced an all-new website designed by Lisa Mathias. The site is designed to improve user navigation and integration with AAI’s publications and projects. As is the future itself, the site is a work-in-progress, so please browse and send us your feedback.

Plus, Foresight Signals celebrates its first birthday with this edition! Highlights of the past year include:

• 10 Consumer Trends in Latin America
• Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet
• Has the First Cybermurder Already Happened?
• Living in a (Smart) Glass House
• The Challenges of a Rising China
• Hot Topic: World Population in 2100

Also beginning with this edition (Volume 2, Number 1), Foresight Signals will be published monthly. It will still be free, and it will still cover a variety of stories for and about the foresight community. Share your stories, news, feedback, and signals with us and your fellow foresight professionals. Log in to comment here or write to consulting editor Cindy Wagner at CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com.

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Mack Report: Coal’s Future Impacts

As coal-based energy declines, it will take other enterprises down with it, writes AAI Foresight Managing Principal Timothy C. Mack in his latest blog, “Coal and the Cascading Consequences of Change.”

Clean coal was long considered the wave of the future, but the U.S. government’s cancellation of the FutureGen project, which would have used oxy-combustion (considered the least-cost approach to clean coal), means more coal companies will fold.

One of the businesses affected by this decline is coal transportation, which often relies on waterways, Mack observes: “While water transport reductions largely impact inland waterway regions, systemic change is seldom confined, but cascades outwards, often producing unexpected negative impacts at the same time that industries such as renewable power grow.”

Read “Coal and the Cascading Consequences of Change.”

Signals: coal, energy, transportation

__________

Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.  

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

__________

© 2015 AAI Foresight

Foresight Signals is a publication of AAI Foresight

1619 Main Street, #1172

Freeland, WA 98249

http://www.aaiforesight.com/

Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack

tcmack333@gmail.com | 202-431-1652

Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner

tomwarner13@gmail.com

Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner

CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com | Twitter: @CynWag1

Signals: Killer Tobacco ... Clay Houses ... Back to the Future II ... and more

 

Vol. 1, No. 24 | October 21, 2015 | AAI Foresight

Inside Foresight Signals

> Tobacco’s Threat for Young Chinese Men

> Bio-Based Building Materials Could Cut Carbon

> Reading the Mind, One Neuron at a Time

> Futures Tools: Compass Methods Anthology

> Blog Report: Back to the Future II

Tobacco’s Threat for Young Chinese Men

Smoking may eventually kill one in three young men in China, warns a new study published in the medical journal The Lancet.

Two-thirds of young Chinese males smoke, often starting before age 20, reports the team of researchers from Oxford University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control. Unless they stop smoking, half of these men will eventually die from tobacco-related diseases, the researchers conclude.

The annual number of tobacco deaths in China had reached 1 million by 2010, according to studies beginning in the 1990s; if current trends continue, that number will reach 2 million by 2030, the researchers predict.

The trend overwhelmingly affects males: Among Chinese women, the researchers note, smoking rates have plummeted, along with women’s risk of premature death from tobacco.

Reference: “Contrasting male and female trends in tobacco-attributed mortality in China: Evidence from successive nationwide prospective cohort studies” by Zhengming Chen et al., The Lancet (October 10, 2015), Volume 386, No. 10002, p1447–1456.

Image: green_intruder via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Signals: China, demographics, gender, health, mortality, tobacco

Bio-Based Building Materials Could Cut Carbon

The construction industry could help Europe meet its 2050 decarbonization goal by building with natural materials. One challenge is the perceived costs of switching back to ancient building materials such as plant waste, straw, clay, and grass. Another challenge is to convince builders that these alternatives are reliable.

“Thirty percent of houses in Germany include clay as building materials. Many of them have stood for more than 100 years,” according to Manfred Lemke of Claytec, a Germany-based developer and producer of clay building materials and systems.

Claytec is part of the European ISOBIO project to develop sustainable materials for building and construction. Such materials as clay could improve insulation by 20 percent over traditional materials, Lemke says. Biomaterials could also reduce the energy and CO₂ emissions from creating and transporting construction materials, cutting a building’s total “embodied energy” in half.

“Clay plaster requires just 10 percent of the energy input of gypsum plaster,” Lemke said in a press statement. “The unique ability of clay-based materials is that they can be re-plastified at any time of use. Using just water, the material can be reactivated for repair. At their end of their life, clay-based materials can be reused without additional efforts.”

Currently, more than 60 companies in Europe are producing over 230 bio-based insulation products, according to the ISOBIO project.

Source: ISOBIO. Image: Claytec.

Signals: biomaterials, clay, construction, energy, Europe

Reading the Mind, One Neuron at a Time

Researchers at Sweden’s Lund University are a step closer to developing electrodes that can be implanted in the brain and capture signals from single neurons over a long period of time while causing no damage to brain tissue.

These electrodes must be biofriendly and flexible enough to function in the brain, which floats inside liquid in the skull, the researchers note. Led by Jens Schouenborg and Lina Pettersson, the researchers produced tailored electrodes that are extremely soft and flexible in all three dimensions, enabling stable recordings from the neurons over a long time.

This flexibility “creates entirely new conditions for our understanding of what happens inside the brain and for the development of more effective treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's disease and chronic pain conditions than can be achieved using today’s techniques,” Schouenborg said in a press statement.

Reference: “An array of highly flexible electrodes with a tailored configuration locked by gelatin during implantation—initial evaluation in cortex cerebri of awake rats” by Johan Agorelius et al., Frontiers in Neuroscience  (September 25, 2015). DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00331.

Signals: brain, neuroscience, Parkinson’s disease

Futures Tools: Compass Methods Anthology

The Association of Professional Futurists has compiled the Compass Methods Anthology, a selection of articles on futures methodologies written by foresight professionals who have been central to developing these techniques:

• Oliver Markley on a new taxonomy of wild card, revised and updated for this edition.
• Richard Lum on VERGE.
• Bill Sharpe on Three Horizons.
• Tony Hodgson on the World Game.
• Terry Grim interviewed on the Foresight Maturity Model.
• Stuart Candy on The Thing From The Future, expanded for this edition.
• Wendy Schultz on the Manoa Scenarios method.
• Dyman Hendricks interviewed on the Systems Methodology Toolkit.

The anthology will be available on the public-facing side of APF’s website, according to Andrew Currey.

Details: Association of Professional Futurists.

Signals: foresight, futures methodologies, futurists

Blog Report: Back to the Future II

The future finally is “now.” As most science-fiction buffs are probably aware, October 21, 2015, marks the future to which Marty McFly travels in Back to the Future II.

As we write in the AAI Foresight Blog, whatever imagined gadgets and social developments might compose the daily life of tomorrow, the “futurists” tasked with executing that future on film needed to make their visions at least somewhat plausible.

So, how did the film do, future-wise? Futurist Jay Herson offers this scorecard:

Correct:

•          Chicago Cubs in the World Series. Maybe. The Cubs indeed are in the playoffs as we write, so stay tuned. The film predicts the Cubs would play Miami in the World Series; while there now is a Miami team in major league baseball, it’s in the National League with the Cubs, so they could not face each other in the World Series.
•          USA Today still exists.
•          Poster for “Surf Vietnam.” The once war-torn country has become a tourist attraction.
•          Multiple channels on TV, including the Weather Channel.
•          Voice control of TV. Some people likely have this capability now, though it is not mainstream.
•          Video telephone (e.g., Skype) exists but does not display vital statistics of the person speaking.

Not correct, at least not yet:

•          Flying cars.
•          Power shoelaces.
•          Lawyers abolished.
•          Bionic implants.
•          Hoverboard.
•          Automatic fitting and drying of clothes.
•          Taxi ride from one side of town to another costing $174. Inflation slowed after the 1980s.
•          Satellite-controlled dog walker.
•          Hydrator in kitchen to make food from small models. Not here yet, but we do have 3D printing of food.

One of the more interesting accomplishments of the film’s futurists almost goes unnoticed:

“The real futuring work in the film is less flashy than the holographic billboard for the 19th sequel of Jaws,” consulting editor Cindy Wagner originally wrote in 2013. “It has to do with the existence not just of alternative scenarios, but of alternative realities. At any point when Biff or Marty or Doc could go back to the past to alter the linear path of the future, it created a new outcome and a new reality. But it did not (as happened in the original BTTF) erase the previous reality. There’s your solution to the time travel paradox: Not just multiple, but infinite universes.”

Read “Back to the Futurist at the Movies” by Cindy Wagner, AAI Foresight Blog (October 17, 2015). Signal courtesy of Jay Herson.

Signals: alternative scenarios, film, futurism, multiple universes, science fiction, time travel

__________

Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.  

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

__________

© 2015 AAI Foresight

Foresight Signals is a publication of AAI Foresight

1619 Main Street, #1172

Freeland, WA 98249

http://www.aaiforesight.com/

Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack

tcmack333@gmail.com | 202-431-1652

Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner

tomwarner13@gmail.com

Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner

CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com | Twitter: @CynWag1

Coal and the Cascading Consequences of Change

By Timothy C. Mack

Much has been said about clean coal, and how it is a “wave of the future.” Clean coal refers to reducing or neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions at the burn point, but regardless of China’s continuing commitment to coal-powered electrical plants, the United States has a natural gas glut and increasingly cost-competitive wind and solar power. As well, mountaintop leveling, destructive chemical processing, and byproduct disposal challenges continue to complicate any solutions that billion-dollar U.S. projects such as the recently canceled FutureGen might have produced.

In FutureGen, oxy-combustion would have been used in combination with carbon storage to capture at least 90 percent of carbon emissions. Oxy-combustion refers to burning coal with a mix of oxygen and carbon dioxide instead of just ambient air. The United States has identified this approach as the least-cost approach to cleaning up existing coal-fired facilities and capturing CO₂ for geologic storage. But the continued use of coal in any form is the central problem as its cost effectiveness continues to decline.

Coal companies continue to go out of business, but they are not going alone. One industry, sometimes overlooked, that they are negatively impacting is coal transport. With nearly 90 gigawatts of U.S. coal-fired capacity (33 percent of the present total) now scheduled to be retired by 2020 and a 35 percent reduction in coal prices since 2012—plus four major coal company bankruptcies in 2015 alone—industries such as coal barge transport (handling 20 percent of the total) will continue to be dramatically affected by this shift.

Future Impact

The process here is a reversal of the economic development multiplier dynamic, which measures the positive impact of new jobs on regional communities. While water transport reductions largely impact inland waterway regions, systemic change is seldom confined, but cascades outwards, often producing unexpected negative impacts at the same time that industries such as renewable power grow. But renewables need only to transport their resulting electricity, which is in a major paradigm shift from coal—an industry that has been a major part of energy production for well over a century.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc.

Sources:

Tina Casey, “No Future For Clean Coal: $1 Billion Plug Pulled On FutureGen,” CleanTechnica.com February 6, 2015.

Dale Dupont, “Coal Hard Facts: Coal Movements in US Continue to Shrink,” WorkBoat, October 2015.

Images: DOE/wikimedia; MoToMo/Flickr

Signals: Risk Radar ... Peak Car? ... Vision 2025 for Arizona ... and more

Vol. 1, No. 23 | October 7, 2015 | AAI Foresight

News for the Foresight Community:

> Signal of the Month: Risk Radar

> Report: Arizona Comes of Age

> Debatable Futures: Peak Car

> Futurists in the News: Genevieve Bell, Ramez Naam

> Upcoming Meetings: Of Living Rooms and Restaurants

> Mack Report: Africa 2030

Signal of the Month: Risk Radar

What’s Next trends report publisher Richard Watson has compiled a matrix for assessing the probability and impact of global risks in a variety of STEEP categories (society, technology, economy, environment, and politics). Among his Risk Radar’s “101 ways the world could change—or possibly end” and how concerned we should be:

1. Don’t Worry: African disunity, weaponization of near-space, moral collapse, decrease in longevity due to sedentary lifestyles.

2. Keep Calm: declining urban air quality, rogue politician, information overload, decline of practical skills.

3. Pay Attention: ocean acidification, robot uprising, globalization backlash, “OMG Kim Kardashian runs for US Presidency” (ranked higher in impact than “Failure of global governance”).

4. Find the Exit: loss of biodiversity, income/wealth polarization, EU collapse, state-sponsored cybercrime, severe water shortages.

Watson assures us that the end of the world (or of humanity) is far from probable, and so he advises us to “drink lots of water, wear sunscreen and try to be a good human.”

Details: Download the high-resolution Risk Radar infographic from Now and Next. Thanks to “signal” spotter Jay Gary.

Signals: risk assessment, STEEP analysis

Report: Arizona Comes of Age

The Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA) has released its report on the major challenges facing the state and approaches to meeting them, starting with more active communications between residents and their government leaders. Citizen participation rates in Arizona are in the bottom quartile nationally, notes the report, titled “Vision 2025: Arizona Comes of Age.”

Describing itself as a “do tank” rather than a “think tank,” CFA focused its report on creating a blueprint for action based on what citizens want for the future of the state: high-quality jobs, high-quality education and training for those jobs, and development to protect the natural environment while improving built infrastructures.

“Arizona has all of the elements right now to come of age,” CFA director Lattie Coor told Arizona Public Media, adding that the state has the characteristics “that will make it one of the most significant, competitive places in the modern economy.”

Source: Center for the Future of Arizona. Also visit Arizona Public Media.

Debatable Futures: Peak Car

Quoting DaVinci Institute senior futurist Thomas Frey as saying “wealthy economies have already hit peak car,” Manhattan Institute senior fellow Mark Mills dismisses the assessment as “poppycock” in his October 1 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Frey and other trend watchers have observed the millennial generation’s preference for urban lifestyles that reduce the need for car ownership. Such preferences have made possible the phenomenal rise of car-sharing services like Uber. But Mills cites recent upticks in millennials moving to the suburbs and buying cars, perhaps as a result of simply growing up and getting better-paying jobs.

Mills also argues that, as a society, the United States has not reached peak driving; rather, gasoline demand is approaching a record 9.2 million barrels a day.

Comment: Certainly low prices can account for today’s accelerating demand for gasoline. One wonders whether—when such demand pulls prices back up—the millennials’ robust affection for tech innovation and social networking will fulfill Frey’s forecast in the long run.

What say you? Peak car: now, soon, someday, or never?

Read: “We’re a Long Way From ‘Peak Car’” by Mark Mills, Wall Street Journal (October 1, 2015).

Signals: automobiles, millennial generation, sharing economy, urban lifestyle, values

Futurists in the News

“Thank you, technology!” Part 1: Described as the Portland, Oregon, area’s most-famous futurist, Intel’s Genevieve Bell, vice president in charge of "Corporate Sensing & Insights," was interviewed about her work on computer-human relations for Willamette Week (September 22). One surprising moment in her research, she says, came when she found herself thanking a computerized device. “The timer went off, and I asked Alexa [Amazon Echo] to stop the timer,” she says. “The timer stopped and I said, ‘Thanks!’ Then I went out of the house thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m a complete idiot.’ And then I did it again a half-hour later.” Read “Hotseat: Intel Futurist Genevieve Bell.”

“Thank you, technology!” Part 2: Former “Microsoftie” and author Ramez Naam was among the technology futurists offering their views for a recent GeekWire panel on the pros and cons of technology. While acknowledging negative impacts of human progress, such as climate change, Naam said he is optimistic about the future: “In the last few decades we have cut poverty in half, hunger in half, more people live in democracy than ever before,” he said. “It’s undeniable to me that the world is getting much better. My best bet for 2030 is that the world will be substantially better than today.” Read: “Asteroids, plagues and why science needs more sex appeal: Our futurists take on the good and bad in tech” by Molly Brown, GeekWire (October 2, 2015).

Upcoming Meetings: Of Living Rooms and Restaurants

The Electronic Living Room: New York Times futurist-in-residence Michael A. Rogers will deliver the opening keynote address at CEDIA Expo 2015, offering insights on the near-term future of home technology. Among the innovations homeowners can expect in their future living rooms, Rogers predicts, are floor-to-ceiling TVs offering virtual reality and telepresence—along with virtual shopping that he describes as the Home Shopping Network “on steroids.”  

CEDIA Expo 2015 will be held October 14-17 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. Details: CEDIA Expo 2015. Also visit CE Pro.

Food Trends on the Menu: The National Restaurant Association will convene in San Diego October 27-28 for the Restaurant Innovation Summit. Among the futurists scheduled to discuss food innovations and trends are Edie Weiner, CEO of Future Hunters, and digital futurist Amy Webb, founder and CEO of Webbmedia Group, who will serve a presentation on the top tech trends for restaurant operators.

The summit will explore innovative on-demand food-delivery services such as Postmates, Caviar, DoorDash and delivery.com, as well as data analytics for marketers and mobile-payment systems. And IBM’s famed Watson, or “Chef Watson,” will pair its “knowledge of food chemistry and taste preferences with what it [has] learned about recipes to generate new and unexpected flavor and ingredient combinations,” according to a press statement. Details: National Restaurant Association

Mack Report: Africa 2030

The recent rise (and more recent decline) of China as an economic powerhouse has overshadowed prospects for Africa, observes AAI Foresight managing principal Timothy C. Mack in his latest blog. He writes: “Africa is expected to quadruple in population over the next 90 years, with its greatest economic and political growth likely in North Africa.”

Companies such as Microsoft have thus become more actively engaged in Africa’s development, focusing not only on Africans as consumers but also on developing the population as workers and investment partners. Read Africa 2030.

Signals: Africa, developing economies, education, technology

__________

Send us your signals! News about your work and other tips are welcome, as is feedback on Foresight Signals. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor.  

Want more signals from AAI Foresight? Check out the blog! Log in to add comments.

Feel free to share Foresight Signals with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community.

__________

© 2015 AAI Foresight

Foresight Signals is a publication of AAI Foresight

1619 Main Street, #1172

Freeland, WA 98249

http://www.aaiforesight.com/

Managing Principal: Timothy C. Mack

tcmack333@gmail.com | 202-431-1652

Webmaster and IT Consultant: Tom Warner

tomwarner13@gmail.com

Consulting Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner

CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com | Twitter: @CynWag1

Africa 2030

By Timothy C. Mack

It is beyond the scope of this blog to discuss the globe in 2030 on a country-by-country basis, but one dramatic shift in employment opportunities is likely to center on the continent of Africa. Between now and 2030, population growth rates in Africa will be greater than for any other country, including China (which has in fact reversed its growth trends through its political one-child policies). Africa is expected to quadruple in population over the next 90 years, with its greatest economic and political growth likely in North Africa.

Much has been written about the rise of Asia and the fact that Asia’s share of global exports in 2030 would total 39 percent of the world total (or double that of today). And certainly the rise of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) can almost be certain to continue. But what of the less-discussed possibilities for the powerhouses of 2030?

One regional development arena seldom considered is the northern portion of the continent of Africa. This is not a total surprise, as it has been strongly asserted that developing countries as a whole will account for 57 percent of global GDP by 2030. Africa is expected to quadruple in population by 2100, with its greatest economic and political growth likely in North Africa, specifically in Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. To date, what has brought the highest levels of economic return in these countries has been privatization, and with China as Africa’s largest investor and trading partner, this is likely to continue to enhance African gains.

At present, only 25 percent of Africans are connected to the Internet (50 percent in cities) but Africa will have the largest working-age population in the world by 2035. What is critical is education and skill-building for this massive workforce, so that these new workers will be designing or inventing new technologies rather than merely repairing and servicing them.

Microsoft’s two-year-old MySkills4Afrika program involves an ongoing initiative staffed by on-leave Microsoft employees (on two- to three-week engagements) who act as technology skills tutors across Africa. They teach subjects ranging from software development to marketing, with the goals of both business development and workforce leadership training. To quote a Microsoft regional director, “We’re investing in the continent,” aiming to meet the UN development goals for Africa. This program will continue through 2016.

 

That continent’s economic and political growth will be driven by the substantial oil, mineral, and other resource reserves of sub-Saharan Africa, but it would also need to be enabled by stable governmental and resource management structures (including better management of the basics of food, water, and electricity). A 2013 McKinsey Global Institute in Africa report on the impact of Internet and e-commerce technologies suggests that Africa is now approaching tipping points in its financial systems, its education structures, health systems, retail infrastructure, agriculture, and governmental effectiveness. This means that some or all of these sectors are on the edge of positive growth of a dramatic nature.

Timothy C. Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight Inc.

Sources:

Matt Day, “Microsoft teaching, learning in Africa,” Seattle Times (September 14, 2015).

Max Fisher, “The Amazing, Surprising, Africa-Driven Demographic Future of the Earth, in 9 charts,” Washington Post (July 16, 2013).

KPMG, Future State 2030: The Global Megatrends Shaping Government (2014).

Susan Lund, James Manyika, and Sree Ramaswamy, “Preparing for a New World of Work,” McKinsey Quarterly (November 2012).